July 29, 2024 • 55 mins
In episode #61 host Brett Stanley chats with surf and underwater photographer Erick Regnard
Erick, along with his brother Ian, created an underwater housing for a 5x4 large format polaroid camera 20 years ago, and shot some incredible photographs with it in Tahiti.
We talk about how they built the camera and housing, the technical issues they had to overcome, and what it’s like to shoot 1 frame an hour for 3 weeks.
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Episode Summary
In this episode of the underwater podcast, the host Brett Stanley interviews surf and underwater photographer Eric Renard, who along with his brother Ian, built an underwater housing for a 4x5 large format Polaroid camera 20 years ago. They shot breathtaking images in Tahiti, overcoming technical challenges, and capturing photos at a rate of one per hour for three weeks. Eric discusses the intricacies of their custom-built camera housing, the pros and cons of using a flat port versus a dome port, their meticulous pre-shot preparations, and the emotional and physical demands of the project. They also touch on the philosophical aspects of photography, the transition from film to digital, and the joy of tackling complex projects. Eric shares insights on their other photographic endeavors, the limitations and occasional frustrations of working with film, and the unique satisfaction derived from creating art the hard way, free from the shortcuts offered by digital technology.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome to the Underwater Podcast, where we
take a deep dive into the worldof underwater portrait
photography, cinematography andeverything in between with your
host, Brett Stanley Stanley.
(00:33):
Welcome back to the UnderwaterPodcast, and this week I'm
chatting with surf andunderwater photographer Eric
Renard.
Eric, along with his brother,Ian, created an underwater
housing for a 4x5 large formatPolaroid camera 20 years ago and
shot some incrediblephotographs with it in Tahiti.
We talk about how they builtthe camera and housing, the
technical issues they had toovercome and what it's like to
shoot one frame an hour forthree weeks.
(00:55):
All right, let's dive in.
Eric, welcome to the UnderwaterPodcast.
Thanks for having me.
Yeah, of course.
So I've got to tell you thatI've seen your underwater
Polaroids for years now, andeven friends of mine have talked
(01:15):
about these images, and wenever really knew who created
them or who made this underwaterPolaroid case.
So I've kind of been trackingyou down for the last few years,
so I'm glad to finally actuallyhave you on the show.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Well, great to be here.
It's funny.
I saw a couple of.
There was some talk online andsome people were trying to do
stuff with 4x5 underwater and myname popped up in the chat,
which was kind of good becausethey were talking about there
was a guy who was shooting in, Ithink, in the river somewhere.
(01:52):
You know where they got themanatees.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Oh, in the Florida Springs.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Yeah, somewhere around there and there was one
guy who had a model and theywere kind of.
You know, sometimes the banteris not that positive and some
people was criticizing it andsome other the purist was
complaining that some of thestuff is not that sharp.
(02:17):
But I think that photographythese days something can be
blurry and can be brings youemotion.
Oh yeah, I think that's whatit's all about.
I always say to people as longas there's something, you see
something and it gives you someemotion, then you know, get it
to put on your wall if you want.
(02:38):
You know.
Yes, so yeah, it's triggeringsomething inside of you.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
No, no, exactly.
I think I've always kind ofsaid this is out of focus and
blurry photos are your style,then go for it.
It doesn't have to be perfect.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
I saw this exhibition in Paris, remember, when there
was a bit of a transitionbetween film and digital, there
was this photographer that wentand did a mission with throwaway
cameras, so it was a little bitof the trend at that time.
There was all these littlethrowaway cameras, you know the
(03:17):
one that I'm talking about?
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Yeah, the little like Kodak disposable cameras.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah .
So he did an exhibition.
I saw that in Paris.
Most of them was self-focused,but the content or what was in
there was amazing.
He sold out, yeah, and it's atime that really made me think
about lots of different things.
(03:42):
And then you had the digitalthat came through and although
I'm a little bit, I love filmand I love holding film, etc.
I think the creation of digitalhas helped a lot of kids who
was not good at, you know,getting the exposure right,
create something, and it hasreally shaken the world of
(04:09):
photography and have a lot ofnew ideas coming through.
Oh, no, absolutely.
So I think that was the bestthing about digital For me.
I still can't get around in myhead of all my photos stored in
a box, right, you know, as ahard drive, and I'd rather go
(04:31):
through a file and seeing my, mynegative, but that's being a
little bit, maybe, old style.
Yeah, yeah, but I mean, thefunny thing is I still scan them
and have them in that box,right?
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Yeah, exactly yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
I mean you have to right yeah, it's just for the
ease of use and everything.
Well, to be able to promoteyourself, everything is online
these days, everything's digital, so you need to transfer your
photography to digital.
Yeah Well, it's interesting youtalk about the transition from
(05:37):
film to digital, because that'sprobably similar to what know if
you know that film or if youraudience know that film.
So PN55 is a four by fivePolaroid rated at 50 ASA, so it
was probably one of the sharpestfilms out there at the time and
it's got a really cool borderaround it.
And there was a little portraitphoto about the 5x7 or
(05:58):
something and it was on his wall, shot by a photographer, and I
went, oh wow, what's this?
What type of film that was?
And he said, oh, it's aPolaroid 4.5.
And the Polaroid 4.5 comes witha negative and a positive, and
you got to overexpose thepositive, which is a paper that
(06:21):
we all get as a Polaroid, but italso had a negative to it and
so the negative needed to beexposed at 40 ASA.
So it's a bit of a slow filmand I thought, cool, maybe we
should start doing some portraitwith it.
And I went and bought a 4x5camera and just started
(06:44):
experimenting with the film.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Yeah, and so with that camera you went and bought,
is that just any camera?
And then the back goes on theback of it.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Yeah, that's a Lenov Master Technica Right.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Yeah, so a normal 4x5 camera.
Does that have bellows as well?
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Yeah, yeah, so a normal 4.5 camera Does that have
bellows as well?
Yeah, most of them got bellows,I think.
Is there any 4.5 that doesn'thave bellows?
I think I'd seen some picturesof the camera underwater, and I
think I didn't see any with thebellows, yeah yeah, yeah,
there's a lot of, I wouldn't say, ingenuity, but we broke our
(07:27):
head for a year to try to figureout how we were going to make
it work underwater.
Yeah, so let's to be a divinginstructor Sorry, an assistant
(07:53):
diving instructor.
And I, every now and then Ipopped in the diving shop, where
you know, I got my course andall that, yeah, and one of the
instructors said to me oh, eric,you should go to this place.
It's near Tonga and thevisibility is like 60 meters and
(08:13):
which is what times three, soabout 180 feet, and the whales
come really close to you.
There's massive whales.
You can swim quite close to thewhales.
And I went.
Oh well, I'm not really a naturephotographer.
I don't go out and shootwildlife.
I've always been a person, apeople person shooter and don't
(08:39):
get me wrong, I love scenery.
I take some photos of scenery,but I don't go out set off to go
.
Oh, I'm going to go out toAlaska and take some photos of
scenery, but I don't go out setoff to go.
Oh, I'm gonna go out to alaskaand take some scenery shots.
So I went.
Okay, that could be cool, butnot really my thing.
Yeah, yeah, but I went back andtalked to him and so, for
(08:59):
everybody who doesn't know, Igot a twin brother and we both
work together, we're bothphotographers.
So I talked to him about it andI said, well, it'd be cool to
probably have somebody in there.
And we thought, well, why don'twe have a naked girl?
Hasn't been done before, andyou know big animal, why don't
(09:28):
we shoot it with a four-five?
And we went all right, yeah, noproblem.
I think we were a little bitnaive of what we were saying,
right, and when we starteddeveloping the idea, we realized
that it wasn't going to be thateasy.
But it was for me, somethingthat's not easy is a bit
(09:50):
challenging, right, it's easywhen I do it.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
So we went on.
It took us about a year to tryto figure out how to get a
camera to work underwater, andso, with the help of an engineer
from a camera shop, we trieddifferent things and we ended up
(10:15):
realizing that the only way itwould work.
I'm not sure your audience arevery much a lot of underwater
people, right.
In general, yeah, justunderwater yeah, so most people
will shoot underwater with adome port and some of them will
(10:38):
have a flat port.
Dome port will go probably witha wide angle and then a flatter
port with a lens.
Yeah, but the problem whetherit's a dome port or a flat port
is that the distance betweenyour lens and the front of the
port if the when that varies,that create a magnifying effect.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
All right.
So as a diving photographer,there would be no problem.
You have an autofocus camera,so you just go out and you'll
autofocus, but if your focusneeds to be fixed then you need
to know exactly where to put thethe focus.
(11:28):
Yeah, and so we set out,realizing that, we call, we
couldn't deal with a dome port.
It had to be a flat port.
And then we realized that thelens could not be moved right.
And then we thought, well, howdo we focus?
Speaker 1 (11:50):
because with the bellows you move the bellows
back and forth, which moves thefront of the yes, yeah, lens.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Basically right but then we realized that the cool
thing mean what is focus?
Really, focus is moving wherethe image, the plane, where it's
focused, to where the film is,basically, so that plane could
(12:18):
be behind the film or in frontof the film.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
You're just moving it to that where your film is
right.
So we decided just to.
And the great thing with thefour five is that you can move
the back instead of the front ohyeah, right, so you fix the
front of the bellows.
So we we took the bellows out,right, we made that fixed and we
(12:47):
just used the back bellows tofocus, oh, okay.
So then we had a fix.
We had a lens that could not.
We made it came to as close aspossible to the flat port and we
just moved the bellows at theback to vary our distance.
(13:10):
Oh right, okay.
So that was one chart or onehurdle over.
And then we knew that to try togo underwater and focus would
be just too hard, so we had topre-focus things, right, yeah.
And the way we made sure thateverything was focused is that
(13:34):
we did some tests before makingsure, let's say, that at three
meters I was able to get sometype of images underwater.
I was able to get some type ofimages underwater.
And then what was happening isthat I was or basically the
(13:56):
model was, going out with ameasuring tape.
That I was really.
I had the measuring tape withme on my weight belt.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
And then so she would take that out to three meters,
and then I would really back in.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Oh, okay.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Yeah, and then I would try to keep that distant
constant when we were going downtogether.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Right.
And so what sort of apertureare you at Cause?
Only five, six Right, but evenin a medium format that's quite
not a lot of that's like f4 oreven less.
Yeah, yeah, yeah so not a lotof room error no, not a lot of
room.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Yeah, and it had to be that because we we lost the
stop going underwater.
We were only shooting at veryshallow depth, so it was between
you, um five and one meterRight Of the surface, so, but we
(15:00):
were still I still overexposedfor to have a little bit of it
was it's always a little bitoverexposure in black and white,
it's kind of good you can getthat back instead of having the
opposite If it's too dark.
And then the film was at 40 asaand then I had, so I was
(15:24):
shooting about six years, sixyears of a second underwater oh,
okay yeah, yeah, so fairly slowyeah yeah, so then.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
So I mean, what was the reason behind not going with
the dome port?
Would that just make thingsmore complicated?
Speaker 2 (15:43):
Yeah, the dome port, will you know, because it's not
flat.
Your lens will not be flatagainst the window or the port
itself.
Then you know it's got areversal effect, the dome port,
because if you go you shot withthe dome port before on a fix on
(16:08):
manual focus.
Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So you know how you probablyneed to put it at very close,
how you probably need to put itat very close, but then when you
for us I think the Dome portwas more created more problems.
(16:30):
You know that we didn't want togo.
Okay, if we have a Dome portFirst, it would have been very
expensive to find a Dome.
It would have been veryexpensive to find a dome port
that would have the angle of.
It was a 90mm lens that we wereusing, but still it's seen
quite a bit.
So it had to.
(16:51):
It's a bigger lens, etc.
So to find whoever would bemaking and I don't think it was
impossible, but it would havecreated a lot more problems.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Yeah, so just by using the flat port you kind of
reduced the amount of problemsyou had.
Yeah, I mean, it'd beinteresting.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
It'd be interesting these days to go okay, why don't
we try a DOM port to this?
Yeah, and see what differenceto test it with one flat port
and one dome port.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Yeah, I think the main difference would be, you
know, because if you're on a90mm lens to start with, then
you're basically going tomagnify that by 20% with the
flat port.
So yeah, with a dome portyou're going to get that 90 back
again, so you get a wider frame.
But yeah, I mean that'sinteresting.
(17:45):
So, yeah, you went for the flatport and then, so how did you
build the actual housing itself?
Speaker 2 (17:52):
So the Polaroid back.
So with the PN55, you slide thesheet film in and then, once it
was in the bottom, there's ametal bottom there and it kind
of locked inside the holder andthen you had to pull.
(18:16):
It was like a curtain, a littlebit like just a normal sheet
holder, but the curtain is madeout of paper, right, all right.
So, and inside the curtain onthe top, you got the chemicals
yeah, plus you got the negativeyeah, I think.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Right yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Plus, you got the negative.
Yeah, I think Right.
Yeah, yeah, I don't know.
No, I think the negative is inand you have the positive inside
, right?
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Is PN.
Is this film?
Is it similar to like otherPolaroid film, where it is
basically all sandwichedtogether with the chemicals
inside it?
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Yeah, it's like that, but PN got a negative and a
positive.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Gotcha Okay, so you would end up pulling it apart.
One side would be negative andone side would be positive.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Yes, okay.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
So the good thing, you wash the negative in sodium
sulfide Right, okay, yeah.
And the good thing, you washthe negative in sodium sulfide
Right, okay, and you clear thechemicals from it and then you
hang it up to dry, oh, okay, andyou got a pretty sharp four by
five negative Right From yourPolaroid.
But the sad thing is that yougot to overexpose the positive
(19:39):
to get a properly exposednegative.
So you kind of lose having aPolaroid.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Gotcha, yeah, so you can't expose it perfectly.
For both of them You've got torule one for the other.
Yes, yeah, exactly so, andwould you be?
You'd be aiming for thenegative, obviously.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
So you can, yes, print from it and and I think
people use a pn because of thecool border and the negative
effect also.
So with the positive you didn'tget that border, gotcha okay.
You know, it was just a like anormal Polaroid positive.
It's just a negative that hadthat border.
(20:20):
It was basically a way toattach the system together.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
And then it ended up going.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Wow, everybody went, in fact, I love the border.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
It's interesting how people pick up on different
things and kind of run with ityeah.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
So I don't think when they made it, it was in 10
intentionally that the borderwould be the cool thing, right?
Yeah, yeah, I think peoplephotographers, picked it up and
go yeah, great concept, but Ilove the border yeah, no,
exactly yeah, so that would.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
How did that kind of cause you design issues in terms
of having to get that Polaroidout of there?
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Yeah, so we asked the .
So we went to a guy that madehousing custom made housing and
we asked him to make sure thatthe housing was wide on the
right-hand side, so when youkept that carton or paper that
(21:29):
you would pull out, you wouldkeep it straight on the side.
Unfortunately, he didn't followthe instruction that well and
made it shorter, oh no, so wewere just able to curl it around
without really bending it Right, which was very lucky.
(21:50):
Otherwise it would have had tobreak it and make an extension.
So we ran with it like that.
Yeah right.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
And so when you look at the back of the camera, is it
twice the size of the polaroidsheet, because you have a
container for the film on theside yeah, no, just it was.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
So I mean, normally this guy makes his housing a
little bit bigger.
It's a little bit low, uh,there's a bit more air around
the camera.
It's not a really tightly fithousing to cameras that he
normally makes.
Yeah, and this one had to havesome levers et cetera.
(22:33):
So we would put the camera inand then pull the lever to
release the camera from thebracket and then also have some
space for the Polaroid on theside, plus have a manual system
to release the trigger to pressthe trigger Right yeah the
(22:54):
trigger so it was a little bitwider.
It wasn't double the size of thecamera, but I'd say it was one
and a half kind of.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Right, yeah, off to one side.
So then he's made this thingbigger, which now has more air
inside it.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
Yeah, 15 kilos, which is how many pounds is that?
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Oh, it's like 35 pounds.
Yeah, yeah, yeah so how wouldyou attach that?
Would you just wrap a weightbelt around it, or something,
yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
So I mean, yeah, we had, we could have made an
anchor point, and we actuallydid put a system around it to
put the weights attached to it,but the big problem was then
lifting it out of the water topass the camera to Ian.
So we thought it's better if wehave just a weight belt, and so
(23:52):
there was a hook by the side ofthe Zodiac where I take the
weight belt out and put it onthe hook and then pass the
housing to Ian Right, who was inthe boat to process each shot.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
And did that 15 kilos ?
Did that sort of make it prettyneutrally buoyant under the
water?
It?
Speaker 2 (24:12):
made it a little bit negatively buoyant so I could
leave the camera on the floorbed Right.
Yeah, I didn't want it to betoo.
I mean, the problem would havebeen hard right, Depending what
depth you're going.
And then I didn't want at somestage, if I had to let it go,
that it would just float back tothe surface.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Right, yeah, and so what sort of depth were you in?
I think you said like one, so.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
Tahiti was standing depth.
Oh, okay, yeah, yeah, and it'sa place, it's a sand bank where
the stingrays get fed, right.
So the best thing with that isthat she was after each shot she
(25:04):
could stand and really relaxand take a breath.
Otherwise she would have beenkicking and get more tired, so
it would have been a little bitharder.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Yeah, absolutely so.
How long did it take you to doeach shot?
I assume you could only do onephoto at a time.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
So I would go down with her.
So first, to be able for her tostay down, she had to exhale
some of the air inside.
She can't just go and take adeep breath because she'll just
float back up.
So she had to exhale some ofthe air in her lungs and so she
could only stay about 15 seconds.
(25:42):
So she'll go down, get theposition, and sometimes the
stingray wasn't there and then,or sometimes the position was
not right and when she came backI wasn't wearing any scuba, so
I needed to.
Well, yeah, because first Icould last a lot longer than her
(26:05):
, because I could hold my breatha deeper, a deeper hold than
her, and then I needed toconverse with her to give her
feedback, you know.
So as soon as she came back up,I'll come back up and then talk
to her and then, when she'sokay, we'll just go back down
(26:26):
and do that until her positionwas right.
And then there was a stingraythere and then, if that came
together nicely, I'll take aphoto.
Then I'll swing back to theboat, pass, take the white belt,
pass that to Ian.
Ian would open the housing,take the camera out, put the
(26:48):
carton back in, process thePolaroid, wait for it for you
know it was 90 seconds or aminute and then open it up, have
a look at the positive and thengive me some feedback on it and
then put another, put the negin where I built tanks of water,
(27:09):
put the negs in there and thenput a new Polaroid in, put the
camera, cock the lens, put thecamera back in the housing and
then pass it back to me I putthe weights around it and go
back to the next shot.
So we were averaging about ashot every hour.
(27:30):
Wow, yeah, because between herdoing the position and getting
it right and having stingrays,it took some time.
Yeah, and our idea was to shootone position a day, just in case
(27:51):
, if we had a great shot, couldwe get a better one with that
position?
Right, because we didn't knowright.
Could there be another magical,a better one with that position
?
Right, because we didn't knowright, could there be another
magical, a better magical momenthappening?
So we thought we'll concentrateon one position a day and we
had all these positions beforewe came to Tahiti.
(28:11):
Yeah, and Tahiti, I have to say,because probably people are
going to ask we talked aboutthis place before and the place.
The island before I was toldwas Niue, with the whales Niue,
but Niue N-I-U-E and it's anisland off the coast of Tonga
Right.
(28:32):
But we were a little bitskeptical to go there because we
never shot whales.
It was in the open ocean andwe've never been there.
So we thought why don't we goto Tahiti and test the housing
and to making sure that it worksIn a lagoon?
(28:52):
It's shallow, it's quite, youknow, it's quite.
It's a lot easier to deal withand and I flew a model from
hawaii that I shot before- yeahand so that's why we're in, uh,
in tahiti, testing the camera.
Yeah, and so, for for a day, wewere shooting one position and
(29:15):
we had three weeks in tahiti,and we were shooting one
position and we had three weeksin tidy and we were shooting
about eight hours a day, whichis what about eight, eight shots
a day about, yeah, averagingabout eight shots a day.
Well, but after three weeks wewere totally emotionally and
(29:35):
physically exhausted.
The water was not warm anymoreand she was kind of over it.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
So it did drain it a little bit out of us, but we got
some great shots.
So I don't know if youraudience are seeing or will be
seeing the stingray photos, butthat was a test shoot, yeah,
which came actually probablymore incredible than the shoot
(30:04):
with the whales.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
And so when you were doing that, did you know before
you went to Tahiti how long itwas going?
Speaker 2 (30:13):
to take to do each shot.
No, we knew that.
We didn't know how long itwould take to get you know to to
take one shot and how long itwould take to get the next shot.
You know, yeah, yeah.
But we had a series of positionand we said, okay, we gotta do
only one position a day becauseif we think that we've got
(30:35):
something right and then move on, then maybe later that could
not be right.
And I think that we've gotsomething right and then move on
, then maybe later that couldnot be right.
And I think that was probablythe best thing, because the
biggest problem well, there wasmore problems than things as we
were discovering it.
So in Tahiti I couldn't getsodium sulfide and you can't
(30:55):
travel with that.
In Hawaii, when I go there orsome other place, I can go to
the university or go to achemist.
You can't really get it overthe chemist, but the university,
with some credibility, they cantrust you and give you sodium
sulfide.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Okay.
So what is sodium sulfide?
What's it used for?
Okay, so what is sodium sulfide?
What's it used for?
Speaker 2 (31:17):
It's a chemical and can be used for different things
, but you can't travel with it,right, yeah, so in Tahiti with
the PN55, you can wash thenegative also in just water,
right, and the sodium sulfidehelped washing the chemicals of
(31:42):
the neg but also act as ahardener.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Right as a fixer.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
Sorry, yeah so, but it was recommended so that you
could later on have your neg inthe fixer after Right.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
You know they could do that, so yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
So we put them in those little tanks that you get
for four, fives.
And what we discovered on thefirst day when we came back,
that probably 20% between 15%and 20% of the necks was clear
(32:25):
as a window, as a glass.
All the emulsion has flown backinto the water.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
Oh God.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
And we don't know why that was happening.
There was two things oh God,salt air right, and we thought
(33:04):
that if we tried to dry it onthe boat, we would end up having
destroyed negative later oneaten by salt, right, yeah, you
know.
So you know you're on sea level.
There's plenty of salt gettingevaporated around you.
It it's bound to go on the egg.
So we decided to keep it wetand then dry it after a day when
(33:26):
we come back home, and thefirst day we discovered that.
So we didn't know if it wasbecause the water got warmer,
but it wasn't all the eggs, andwe didn't know if it was due to
some of the net being the onedone at the beginning and it
(33:46):
passed a certain time.
We were just hoping that therest, that whatever we were
shooting, could stay on the negby the time we got home.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
And you're just talking about each day, right,
like not the end of the trip,just every day, every day.
So you've got eight negatives,yeah, so about two negative
would be out.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
Oh God, yeah, yeah, so you could be unlucky and I
don't know what we've lost.
I don't know because Ian waslooking at it quickly.
Because Ian was looking at itquickly and that's why I said it
was great that we were able tokeep on doing the same position,
so that imagine if we moved onto the next position within a
(34:36):
day, we could have probably lostone of those positions.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Oh, no, totally.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
And a lot of it was experimenting, because some of
the position wasn't working sowe moved on to the next.
It's like shooting a model onland.
Sometimes the idea that youhave doesn't work and you just
got to go with the flow andadjust it and move it or do
something different.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Yeah, no, totally.
And so this, this whole process, is about as far away as from
digital photography as you canget.
Yeah, this is like that isn't.
Did you enjoy that process of?
Oh yeah, the slowness of it?
Speaker 2 (35:17):
yeah, I think I I said to people the the great
thing it was.
I think I wouldn't say theproblem of digital these days,
but it's more like things aretraveling at such a speed these
days, everything's changingrapidly and it was kind of cool
(35:39):
and great to be able to takeyour time to do things.
Yeah, cool and great to be ableto take your time to do things.
Yeah, you know, I mean withwith digital.
I mean they they're gettingcameras now that that everything
, once you shoot it, it's gonnago straight on the net or on the
cloud or somewhere that.
So all this is about speed andtime and and this was just
(36:05):
slowing everything down to the,to the core of things you know
the basic.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
Yeah, there's digital cameras these days where you
can.
It'll basically taking a videoand then you just choose which
frame you want to take out ofthat video, whereas you had to
actually sit there underwaterand think, oh, is this the shot
or is the?
Next one gonna be the shot,yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, before
you even click the shutter, Ihad a moment.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
I don't know if you can recall, there's a shot where
she's in crouching and there'stwo stingrays um on top of that
of yeah, yeah, all right.
So those stingrays came fromopposite direction.
It's not like they werefloating on top of each other
and they just came on top of her.
(36:52):
They came from left to right,both of them, and they came on
top of her and turned towards me.
That's incredible.
So at what time do you go now?
Yeah, right, because you onlygot one shot, so it is.
Is it now?
Is it now?
(37:12):
Is it now Is?
Speaker 1 (37:13):
it now.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Am I going to get something better after, or would
I miss it?
Yeah, you know.
So there was some of thathappening.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
And the beauty about that shot is that there is not
just that the stingrays are inthe perfect position, but there
is a small fish in theforeground of that that if it
was like half a centimeter moreto the right, it would totally
cover her face.
Yeah, I know.
Like the timing of her face.
(37:50):
It's kind of cute, yeah butit's, it's a different.
It's not there, it's slightlyoff of her, but you, it feels
like the fish is kissing heryeah and so, and so, when you're
actually shooting, when you'reusing the camera I mean, you've
got a viewfinder, obviously, soyou're just.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
No, because it's a wide angle.
We put a little viewfinder froma Nikonos on top of it, right,
yeah, from a 15mm Nikonos on it,because it's a glass viewfinder
that's on top of it so I couldsee.
And in there it's kind of coolbecause it's got little frames
(38:31):
so I could see where the camerawas pointing a little bit and
you get used to it, but it gaveme a little bit of an idea.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
And that's just sitting on top of the housing,
of the housing, yeah, in thewater, yeah, yeah, it's a, it's
a waterproof.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
You know what's a Nikonas, right?
Yeah, the old 35 mil underwatercameras, yeah, yeah.
Invented by Kuster and JacquesMaillot?
Yeah, I think.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
So had you done any underwater photos in other ways
before this?
Speaker 2 (39:04):
Well, I come from Mauritius, so I was a big fan of
Cousteau when I was a kid so Iwas spending all my time in the
water.
Dad gave us a littleweathermatic Minota so they used
to take 110 film cartridge,yeah.
So we started shooting withthat camera and we just wanted
(39:27):
to be Cousteau, right, yeah,later on, you know, we went to
school, moved to Australia andthat kind of died because the
great thing in Mauritius you gota ton of coral and fish in
front of you.
In Australia you just got sand,yeah.
So there was nothing muchreally to shoot here, so that
(39:52):
kind of died down.
And then I went and did uni andthen when I went to work about
a couple of years later, Idecided to go and buy an Econos
Right.
And when we went back toMauritius we did some photos and
then we thought why don't westart shooting?
Speaker 1 (40:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
And so I've always been attracted to the water.
I wanted to make a career inunderwater photography.
To make a career in underwaterphotography, but in Australia.
I think I would have had tomove to Florida, oh, right,
because in Australia you onlyhad a couple of diving magazines
(40:36):
at the time, right, but theywanted to pay $10 for a photo,
right, yeah, they wanted to pay$10 for a photo, right, yeah.
So I knew that I could not makea living out of taking photos
underwater and selling it to thebank.
I had to either work for acompany, a brand, an underwater
(40:59):
brand, you know, let's say, likeGotch Arm or any underwater you
know.
Yeah, yeah, like a swimsy brandor wetsuits or well, yeah, a
wetsuit company, a diving bottlecompany, etc.
Yeah, yeah, and all of them arein florida, right?
You know all the I would saythe majority of them.
(41:20):
So for us it was okay, well,what do we do?
And then there was the surfhappening.
That we loved also.
So we thought why don't we goand shoot surfing?
So we transitioned from thatinto shooting surfing and for 15
years I was shooting surfing.
I was traveling the worldshooting surfing.
(41:42):
Mostly in the water or on thebeach as well, mostly from the
land because I had so manymagazines I had to submit to.
But I would go in the waterwhen I could.
Right, yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:55):
And so when you're shooting like that, when you're
shooting underwater with thePolaroid camera, I assume it's
just natural light.
How were you metering?
How were you exposing?
Speaker 2 (42:07):
Was it just Well?
So I know my light and I knowthat I go under a meter
underwater.
I want to expose, overexpose itof one stone.
So if I have F8 at 500 on top,I do you know, 5.6 at 500 or F8
(42:29):
at 250 underwater.
Speaker 1 (42:32):
And you would have to set all those settings before
you close the case up.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, all that stuff before.
Speaker 1 (42:37):
Yeah, did you have any leaks?
Did you have any?
Speaker 2 (42:41):
We didn't.
We tested it in the pool before, and without the camera, of
course, but he makes his housing, he's, he does quite a lot of
housing.
So it's it's about making surethe o-rings were greased and
there was not much sand aroundus, because other than the
bottom of the ocean, but thatdoesn't tend to stick too much
(43:03):
to your o-ring.
But we were in the Zodiac so itwas quite safe.
But every day we were makingsure there wasn't a hair or
something.
But the o-ring was quite softand big so we were tightening
that quite well.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
Right, yeah, but do you still use the camera?
Speaker 2 (43:24):
I still use a well, right, yeah, but do you still
use the camera?
I still use a 4.5.
I haven't used the housingsince I've got a photographer in
Hawaii who wanted to bring itin the waves and test it out.
I think you would have had tobe a team of two or three people
(43:44):
so you would have the housingwith a rope with two or three
people, because what happened isthat if the wave takes it, it
will.
It could smash it.
So if the person is at theright point, because there's so
much air in it, you have the twoother um swimmers at the back
with a rope pulling on the orholding the housing, so it
(44:09):
doesn't go with the wave.
Right, that was the idea if youtook that in the waves, but it
hasn't been used since, right?
Speaker 1 (44:20):
which is unfortunate, but yeah, I mean because it's
such a beautiful format.
I mean, I haven't seen photoslike this before, shot
underwater.
Yeah, yeah, it's incredible.
Speaker 2 (44:30):
And for and for me it was.
This was a great project.
I mean, this is not just agreat, it was an incredible
project, and I always try to gookay, what's my next project,
what do I do?
I don't need to keep on doingthe same thing over.
So what happened, unfortunately, with this project?
(44:55):
With the whales you probably go.
Where's the photo of the nakedgirl with the whales?
When we went to Nui for twoweeks, we didn't see one whale.
Oh yeah, that's always thewhales.
When we went to Nui for twoweeks, we didn't see one whale.
Oh yeah, that's always the way.
And so we got some photos ofthe girl and we thought why
doesn't she practice herposition so that when we see a
whale, it's probably it mightstay, it might go, we don't know
(45:19):
, don't know.
So if she knows exactly how tobe in her position, then we'll
cut that problem and we can getstraight in it quite quickly and
take a photo quite quickly,right?
So we practice and kept onshooting with a four five for me
it was going also making sure II get more used to it in the
(45:44):
open water, yeah.
And so we got some great shotsalso there, but nothing with the
whale and some person askedthat to me before.
I said oh so are you going togo back and shoot it with the
whales?
I'm going, I kind of.
Maybe won't, but I'm kind ofgoing.
(46:07):
You know what that was aproject, that was what we've
done.
It's already an exhibitiontouring.
If I go and do that again withthe whales for me it's going to
be am I going to do a kind ofsame same exhibition?
Speaker 1 (46:23):
Yeah, does that undermine what you've already
done?
Speaker 2 (46:26):
I wouldn't think it would undermine, but I think I
would get bored of it.
Right To go back and say, oh,do I do the same position that I
did Because these were quitegood position?
Yeah, I'll do them, but thenthey'll become boring for me
because it's doing the samething.
So I kind of moving on to adifferent project.
Speaker 1 (46:51):
So did you move on to anything else underwater?
Speaker 2 (46:54):
Yes, but I'm shooting a girl underwater but I'm on
top of the water, oh, okay, soabove, shooting down through the
surface, yes, shooting a girlunderwater, but I'm on top of
the water, oh, okay, yeah, soabove shooting down through the
surface.
Yes, oh, cool.
Yeah.
So trying to use the movement ofthe water to break the lines of
(47:16):
a body, yeah, as a filter,basically Not as a filter, but
you know, if you look atsomebody from top of the water,
if there's movement on the water, let's say a arm is not
straight anymore.
It's kind of broken.
Yeah, so I'm trying to to havethat happening right.
(47:40):
And then I also want to shootit early morning to get all the
colors of the sunrise or thesunset, and so would this be in
the ocean as well.
Well, the problem doing it in,let's say, a river, it tends to
be a lot colder.
I'm shooting it at the momentin the pools of Sydney.
Speaker 1 (48:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
But I don't live in Sydney, so it's when I fly there
, or it's got more complexity ofelements.
So you know, sometimes we gothere and there's no sunrise,
sometimes there's waves too manywaves crashing in the pool, so
there's things like this, andsometimes she can't perform at
(48:24):
all.
So I got to have I think I wantto do it with different models
to give it a little bit ofdifferent personality for some
shots.
So it's an idea.
I've shot about probably fivephotos that I'm happy with, but
I need another probably 10 orsomething, 10 or 15 to really be
(48:48):
able to go okay, which one Ilike best.
Speaker 1 (48:52):
Yeah, and is this something shot on film or is
this a digital project?
Speaker 2 (48:56):
That's shot on still on film on 5x7 Pentax.
Speaker 1 (49:01):
Oh cool, yeah, and are you kind of drawn to
projects that involve complexity?
Speaker 2 (49:08):
Yes, I think so.
Speaker 1 (49:10):
You like the problem solving?
Speaker 2 (49:13):
Well, I think it doesn't need to be always
problem solving as intechnically, but I think I like
it for it not to be easy.
Okay, I think these daysanybody can do anything, right.
You can, I mean, recreate aphoto if you want to, but it's
(49:37):
for me.
I remember when I was doing the4.5 project, when we were
trying to figure out how to makethe camera go underwater, the
owner of the shop which I nearlyslapped him for it because he's
a purist said to me Eric, whydon't you shoot this in digital
and just slap a border around it?
(49:58):
Sacrilege, yeah, yeah, yeah,exactly.
I said uh, his name is ron,he's unfortunately deceased, and
great man he's.
Uh, he's come from germany andso he had all the thing with
likers and hassleblads and allthat stuff.
But, yes, it would have beenthe easiest choice and I would
(50:22):
have gone down and got athousand or two thousand photos.
Yeah, but anybody can do thatas well.
Speaker 1 (50:29):
Oh, no, exactly, yeah .
And then where does it?
Speaker 2 (50:31):
start.
For me it doesn't add to.
I guess I like the challengeand I like to go and do
something that nobody can repeat, you know.
Speaker 1 (50:42):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Or you know, it's that kind ofno one can kind of undermine
what you did, because it's allthere, it's all captured in
camera, it's all practicallydone.
There's no cheating.
Yeah, yeah, and that's kind ofmy philosophy as well is, I do a
lot of work, you know, I buildpractical sets and I build, you
know all this stuff under thewater.
(51:04):
And a lot of work.
You know I build practical setsand I build, you know, all this
stuff under the water and whenI post them, people are like, oh
, you know, you're really goodat Photoshop.
I'm like, oh God, no, that'snot why, it's not how I did it
and that's not why.
Speaker 2 (51:12):
I did it.
Speaker 1 (51:13):
And now with people you know they'll see work and
they'll be, and they'll see howI did it.
They'll see the behind thescenes or everyone they'll be
like oh, you could have justdone that with ai.
Speaker 2 (51:27):
I'm like, oh, that's that problem yeah exactly yeah,
it just keeps happening, yeah,yeah, I mean, I think, uh, you
know, it's always it's easy totake the easy route, I think yes
you know.
So for me it adds to the rarityof the photo after.
It adds to a lot of things.
(51:48):
I mean those photos, those fouror five photos are a limited
edition of six.
On the neg Right yeah.
So we wanted them to be quitespecial and they printed two
meters wide, which is how manyfeet?
Is that Two times?
Speaker 1 (52:11):
Yeah, times by three.
So, yeah, six feet wide.
Yeah, yeah, which must beamazing to see.
Are they on display anywhere?
There's one in my lounge.
Right.
Speaker 2 (52:21):
They're only so.
There's been three buyers ofthem, but they're obviously at
their house, but yeah, sothey're for sale, and so people
who buy them, I guess, put them.
Nobody, no company, has boughtthem.
I think some people are stillquite careful about nudity,
(52:42):
which is, I think, places likeEurope.
I haven't done an exhibitionthere with it.
Yeah, and I will try to dosomething.
It will be easier to have thatin a foyer of a company, let's
say, in Europe, than anywhereelse.
Speaker 1 (53:00):
I think you'll never be in a foyeryear in america, or
it needs to be a few years herein australia to get there yeah,
yeah, eric, that's awesome,such a such an interesting story
like how you, how you did thatand how you kind of yeah, the
time you spent doing that soamazing.
Speaker 2 (53:18):
Yeah, thanks for sharing it with everyone.
Easy and and if anybody got anyquestion, I'm here to answer.
Speaker 1 (53:25):
They can email me and that's no problem.
Yeah, great, I'll add that tothe show notes when we publish
it.
And we also have a Facebookgroup if you want to join.
People come in and theyactually ask questions of the
guests we've had as well.
Speaker 2 (53:39):
Oh, yeah, cool.
What's the Facebook groupcalled?
Speaker 1 (53:42):
It's just the Underwater Podcast group on
Facebook.
Yeah, I'll send you a link toit.
Oh great, awesome, all right,well, thanks very much, eric.
It's so great being able tochat with you about this.
Speaker 2 (53:54):
Easy.
I hope it all made sense.
We were a little bit everywhereall over, but hopefully we come
back and make sense to people.
But I think everybody out therethat just try different things,
experiment it's really cool.
Even if it doesn't work, whocares?
Speaker 1 (54:12):
Oh, no, exactly yeah.
Speaker 2 (54:14):
You won't know until you try.
Speaker 1 (54:20):
Thanks for listening everyone and, as always, if you
like the podcast, pleasesubscribe, review and share.
If you'd like to support withthe production of these episodes
, you can purchase our very coolmerchandise at
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We've got branded coffee mugs,stickers, beer cozies and
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(54:40):
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If you'd like to connect withus or learn more about our
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We also have a Facebook groupwhere you can discuss the
episodes and even get yourquestions answered by our guests
.
There's a link to it in theshow notes.
Also, don't forget aboutWaterproof Magazine showcasing
the best in underwater art.
(55:01):
Read it online or purchase aprint edition at
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You can learn more about myunderwater photography workshops
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brett stanley, and our music isneo by oh boy creating everyone.
(55:22):
I'll see you in the water.
Welcome to the Underwater Podcast, where we
take a deep dive into the worldof underwater portrait
photography, cinematography andeverything in between with your
host, Brett Stanley Stanley.
(00:33):
Welcome back to the UnderwaterPodcast, and this week I'm
chatting with surf andunderwater photographer Eric
Renard.
Eric, along with his brother,Ian, created an underwater
housing for a 4x5 large formatPolaroid camera 20 years ago and
shot some incrediblephotographs with it in Tahiti.
We talk about how they builtthe camera and housing, the
technical issues they had toovercome and what it's like to
shoot one frame an hour forthree weeks.
(00:55):
All right, let's dive in.
Eric, welcome to the UnderwaterPodcast.
Thanks for having me.
Yeah, of course.
So I've got to tell you thatI've seen your underwater
Polaroids for years now, andeven friends of mine have talked
(01:15):
about these images, and wenever really knew who created
them or who made this underwaterPolaroid case.
So I've kind of been trackingyou down for the last few years,
so I'm glad to finally actuallyhave you on the show.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Well, great to be here.
It's funny.
I saw a couple of.
There was some talk online andsome people were trying to do
stuff with 4x5 underwater and myname popped up in the chat,
which was kind of good becausethey were talking about there
was a guy who was shooting in, Ithink, in the river somewhere.
(01:52):
You know where they got themanatees.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Oh, in the Florida Springs.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Yeah, somewhere around there and there was one
guy who had a model and theywere kind of.
You know, sometimes the banteris not that positive and some
people was criticizing it andsome other the purist was
complaining that some of thestuff is not that sharp.
(02:17):
But I think that photographythese days something can be
blurry and can be brings youemotion.
Oh yeah, I think that's whatit's all about.
I always say to people as longas there's something, you see
something and it gives you someemotion, then you know, get it
to put on your wall if you want.
(02:38):
You know.
Yes, so yeah, it's triggeringsomething inside of you.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
No, no, exactly.
I think I've always kind ofsaid this is out of focus and
blurry photos are your style,then go for it.
It doesn't have to be perfect.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
I saw this exhibition in Paris, remember, when there
was a bit of a transitionbetween film and digital, there
was this photographer that wentand did a mission with throwaway
cameras, so it was a little bitof the trend at that time.
There was all these littlethrowaway cameras, you know the
(03:17):
one that I'm talking about?
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Yeah, the little like Kodak disposable cameras.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah .
So he did an exhibition.
I saw that in Paris.
Most of them was self-focused,but the content or what was in
there was amazing.
He sold out, yeah, and it's atime that really made me think
about lots of different things.
(03:42):
And then you had the digitalthat came through and although
I'm a little bit, I love filmand I love holding film, etc.
I think the creation of digitalhas helped a lot of kids who
was not good at, you know,getting the exposure right,
create something, and it hasreally shaken the world of
(04:09):
photography and have a lot ofnew ideas coming through.
Oh, no, absolutely.
So I think that was the bestthing about digital For me.
I still can't get around in myhead of all my photos stored in
a box, right, you know, as ahard drive, and I'd rather go
(04:31):
through a file and seeing my, mynegative, but that's being a
little bit, maybe, old style.
Yeah, yeah, but I mean, thefunny thing is I still scan them
and have them in that box,right?
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Yeah, exactly yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
I mean you have to right yeah, it's just for the
ease of use and everything.
Well, to be able to promoteyourself, everything is online
these days, everything's digital, so you need to transfer your
photography to digital.
Yeah Well, it's interesting youtalk about the transition from
(05:37):
film to digital, because that'sprobably similar to what know if
you know that film or if youraudience know that film.
So PN55 is a four by fivePolaroid rated at 50 ASA, so it
was probably one of the sharpestfilms out there at the time and
it's got a really cool borderaround it.
And there was a little portraitphoto about the 5x7 or
(05:58):
something and it was on his wall, shot by a photographer, and I
went, oh wow, what's this?
What type of film that was?
And he said, oh, it's aPolaroid 4.5.
And the Polaroid 4.5 comes witha negative and a positive, and
you got to overexpose thepositive, which is a paper that
(06:21):
we all get as a Polaroid, but italso had a negative to it and
so the negative needed to beexposed at 40 ASA.
So it's a bit of a slow filmand I thought, cool, maybe we
should start doing some portraitwith it.
And I went and bought a 4x5camera and just started
(06:44):
experimenting with the film.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Yeah, and so with that camera you went and bought,
is that just any camera?
And then the back goes on theback of it.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Yeah, that's a Lenov Master Technica Right.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Yeah, so a normal 4x5 camera.
Does that have bellows as well?
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Yeah, yeah, so a normal 4.5 camera Does that have
bellows as well?
Yeah, most of them got bellows,I think.
Is there any 4.5 that doesn'thave bellows?
I think I'd seen some picturesof the camera underwater, and I
think I didn't see any with thebellows, yeah yeah, yeah,
there's a lot of, I wouldn't say, ingenuity, but we broke our
(07:27):
head for a year to try to figureout how we were going to make
it work underwater.
Yeah, so let's to be a divinginstructor Sorry, an assistant
(07:53):
diving instructor.
And I, every now and then Ipopped in the diving shop, where
you know, I got my course andall that, yeah, and one of the
instructors said to me oh, eric,you should go to this place.
It's near Tonga and thevisibility is like 60 meters and
(08:13):
which is what times three, soabout 180 feet, and the whales
come really close to you.
There's massive whales.
You can swim quite close to thewhales.
And I went.
Oh well, I'm not really a naturephotographer.
I don't go out and shootwildlife.
I've always been a person, apeople person shooter and don't
(08:39):
get me wrong, I love scenery.
I take some photos of scenery,but I don't go out set off to go
.
Oh, I'm going to go out toAlaska and take some photos of
scenery, but I don't go out setoff to go.
Oh, I'm gonna go out to alaskaand take some scenery shots.
So I went.
Okay, that could be cool, butnot really my thing.
Yeah, yeah, but I went back andtalked to him and so, for
(08:59):
everybody who doesn't know, Igot a twin brother and we both
work together, we're bothphotographers.
So I talked to him about it andI said, well, it'd be cool to
probably have somebody in there.
And we thought, well, why don'twe have a naked girl?
Hasn't been done before, andyou know big animal, why don't
(09:28):
we shoot it with a four-five?
And we went all right, yeah, noproblem.
I think we were a little bitnaive of what we were saying,
right, and when we starteddeveloping the idea, we realized
that it wasn't going to be thateasy.
But it was for me, somethingthat's not easy is a bit
(09:50):
challenging, right, it's easywhen I do it.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
So we went on.
It took us about a year to tryto figure out how to get a
camera to work underwater, andso, with the help of an engineer
from a camera shop, we trieddifferent things and we ended up
(10:15):
realizing that the only way itwould work.
I'm not sure your audience arevery much a lot of underwater
people, right.
In general, yeah, justunderwater yeah, so most people
will shoot underwater with adome port and some of them will
(10:38):
have a flat port.
Dome port will go probably witha wide angle and then a flatter
port with a lens.
Yeah, but the problem whetherit's a dome port or a flat port
is that the distance betweenyour lens and the front of the
port if the when that varies,that create a magnifying effect.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
All right.
So as a diving photographer,there would be no problem.
You have an autofocus camera,so you just go out and you'll
autofocus, but if your focusneeds to be fixed then you need
to know exactly where to put thethe focus.
(11:28):
Yeah, and so we set out,realizing that, we call, we
couldn't deal with a dome port.
It had to be a flat port.
And then we realized that thelens could not be moved right.
And then we thought, well, howdo we focus?
Speaker 1 (11:50):
because with the bellows you move the bellows
back and forth, which moves thefront of the yes, yeah, lens.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Basically right but then we realized that the cool
thing mean what is focus?
Really, focus is moving wherethe image, the plane, where it's
focused, to where the film is,basically, so that plane could
(12:18):
be behind the film or in frontof the film.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
You're just moving it to that where your film is
right.
So we decided just to.
And the great thing with thefour five is that you can move
the back instead of the front ohyeah, right, so you fix the
front of the bellows.
So we we took the bellows out,right, we made that fixed and we
(12:47):
just used the back bellows tofocus, oh, okay.
So then we had a fix.
We had a lens that could not.
We made it came to as close aspossible to the flat port and we
just moved the bellows at theback to vary our distance.
(13:10):
Oh right, okay.
So that was one chart or onehurdle over.
And then we knew that to try togo underwater and focus would
be just too hard, so we had topre-focus things, right, yeah.
And the way we made sure thateverything was focused is that
(13:34):
we did some tests before makingsure, let's say, that at three
meters I was able to get sometype of images underwater.
I was able to get some type ofimages underwater.
And then what was happening isthat I was or basically the
(13:56):
model was, going out with ameasuring tape.
That I was really.
I had the measuring tape withme on my weight belt.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
And then so she would take that out to three meters,
and then I would really back in.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Oh, okay.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Yeah, and then I would try to keep that distant
constant when we were going downtogether.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Right.
And so what sort of apertureare you at Cause?
Only five, six Right, but evenin a medium format that's quite
not a lot of that's like f4 oreven less.
Yeah, yeah, yeah so not a lotof room error no, not a lot of
room.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Yeah, and it had to be that because we we lost the
stop going underwater.
We were only shooting at veryshallow depth, so it was between
you, um five and one meterRight Of the surface, so, but we
(15:00):
were still I still overexposedfor to have a little bit of it
was it's always a little bitoverexposure in black and white,
it's kind of good you can getthat back instead of having the
opposite If it's too dark.
And then the film was at 40 asaand then I had, so I was
(15:24):
shooting about six years, sixyears of a second underwater oh,
okay yeah, yeah, so fairly slowyeah yeah, so then.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
So I mean, what was the reason behind not going with
the dome port?
Would that just make thingsmore complicated?
Speaker 2 (15:43):
Yeah, the dome port, will you know, because it's not
flat.
Your lens will not be flatagainst the window or the port
itself.
Then you know it's got areversal effect, the dome port,
because if you go you shot withthe dome port before on a fix on
(16:08):
manual focus.
Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So you know how you probablyneed to put it at very close,
how you probably need to put itat very close, but then when you
for us I think the Dome portwas more created more problems.
(16:30):
You know that we didn't want togo.
Okay, if we have a Dome portFirst, it would have been very
expensive to find a Dome.
It would have been veryexpensive to find a dome port
that would have the angle of.
It was a 90mm lens that we wereusing, but still it's seen
quite a bit.
So it had to.
(16:51):
It's a bigger lens, etc.
So to find whoever would bemaking and I don't think it was
impossible, but it would havecreated a lot more problems.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Yeah, so just by using the flat port you kind of
reduced the amount of problemsyou had.
Yeah, I mean, it'd beinteresting.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
It'd be interesting these days to go okay, why don't
we try a DOM port to this?
Yeah, and see what differenceto test it with one flat port
and one dome port.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Yeah, I think the main difference would be, you
know, because if you're on a90mm lens to start with, then
you're basically going tomagnify that by 20% with the
flat port.
So yeah, with a dome portyou're going to get that 90 back
again, so you get a wider frame.
But yeah, I mean that'sinteresting.
(17:45):
So, yeah, you went for the flatport and then, so how did you
build the actual housing itself?
Speaker 2 (17:52):
So the Polaroid back.
So with the PN55, you slide thesheet film in and then, once it
was in the bottom, there's ametal bottom there and it kind
of locked inside the holder andthen you had to pull.
(18:16):
It was like a curtain, a littlebit like just a normal sheet
holder, but the curtain is madeout of paper, right, all right.
So, and inside the curtain onthe top, you got the chemicals
yeah, plus you got the negativeyeah, I think.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Right yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Plus, you got the negative.
Yeah, I think Right.
Yeah, yeah, I don't know.
No, I think the negative is inand you have the positive inside
, right?
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Is PN.
Is this film?
Is it similar to like otherPolaroid film, where it is
basically all sandwichedtogether with the chemicals
inside it?
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Yeah, it's like that, but PN got a negative and a
positive.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Gotcha Okay, so you would end up pulling it apart.
One side would be negative andone side would be positive.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Yes, okay.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
So the good thing, you wash the negative in sodium
sulfide Right, okay, yeah.
And the good thing, you washthe negative in sodium sulfide
Right, okay, and you clear thechemicals from it and then you
hang it up to dry, oh, okay, andyou got a pretty sharp four by
five negative Right From yourPolaroid.
But the sad thing is that yougot to overexpose the positive
(19:39):
to get a properly exposednegative.
So you kind of lose having aPolaroid.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Gotcha, yeah, so you can't expose it perfectly.
For both of them You've got torule one for the other.
Yes, yeah, exactly so, andwould you be?
You'd be aiming for thenegative, obviously.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
So you can, yes, print from it and and I think
people use a pn because of thecool border and the negative
effect also.
So with the positive you didn'tget that border, gotcha okay.
You know, it was just a like anormal Polaroid positive.
It's just a negative that hadthat border.
(20:20):
It was basically a way toattach the system together.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
And then it ended up going.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Wow, everybody went, in fact, I love the border.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
It's interesting how people pick up on different
things and kind of run with ityeah.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
So I don't think when they made it, it was in 10
intentionally that the borderwould be the cool thing, right?
Yeah, yeah, I think peoplephotographers, picked it up and
go yeah, great concept, but Ilove the border yeah, no,
exactly yeah, so that would.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
How did that kind of cause you design issues in terms
of having to get that Polaroidout of there?
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Yeah, so we asked the .
So we went to a guy that madehousing custom made housing and
we asked him to make sure thatthe housing was wide on the
right-hand side, so when youkept that carton or paper that
(21:29):
you would pull out, you wouldkeep it straight on the side.
Unfortunately, he didn't followthe instruction that well and
made it shorter, oh no, so wewere just able to curl it around
without really bending it Right, which was very lucky.
(21:50):
Otherwise it would have had tobreak it and make an extension.
So we ran with it like that.
Yeah right.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
And so when you look at the back of the camera, is it
twice the size of the polaroidsheet, because you have a
container for the film on theside yeah, no, just it was.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
So I mean, normally this guy makes his housing a
little bit bigger.
It's a little bit low, uh,there's a bit more air around
the camera.
It's not a really tightly fithousing to cameras that he
normally makes.
Yeah, and this one had to havesome levers et cetera.
(22:33):
So we would put the camera inand then pull the lever to
release the camera from thebracket and then also have some
space for the Polaroid on theside, plus have a manual system
to release the trigger to pressthe trigger Right yeah the
(22:54):
trigger so it was a little bitwider.
It wasn't double the size of thecamera, but I'd say it was one
and a half kind of.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Right, yeah, off to one side.
So then he's made this thingbigger, which now has more air
inside it.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
Yeah, 15 kilos, which is how many pounds is that?
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Oh, it's like 35 pounds.
Yeah, yeah, yeah so how wouldyou attach that?
Would you just wrap a weightbelt around it, or something,
yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
So I mean, yeah, we had, we could have made an
anchor point, and we actuallydid put a system around it to
put the weights attached to it,but the big problem was then
lifting it out of the water topass the camera to Ian.
So we thought it's better if wehave just a weight belt, and so
(23:52):
there was a hook by the side ofthe Zodiac where I take the
weight belt out and put it onthe hook and then pass the
housing to Ian Right, who was inthe boat to process each shot.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
And did that 15 kilos ?
Did that sort of make it prettyneutrally buoyant under the
water?
It?
Speaker 2 (24:12):
made it a little bit negatively buoyant so I could
leave the camera on the floorbed Right.
Yeah, I didn't want it to betoo.
I mean, the problem would havebeen hard right, Depending what
depth you're going.
And then I didn't want at somestage, if I had to let it go,
that it would just float back tothe surface.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Right, yeah, and so what sort of depth were you in?
I think you said like one, so.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
Tahiti was standing depth.
Oh, okay, yeah, yeah, and it'sa place, it's a sand bank where
the stingrays get fed, right.
So the best thing with that isthat she was after each shot she
(25:04):
could stand and really relaxand take a breath.
Otherwise she would have beenkicking and get more tired, so
it would have been a little bitharder.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Yeah, absolutely so.
How long did it take you to doeach shot?
I assume you could only do onephoto at a time.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
So I would go down with her.
So first, to be able for her tostay down, she had to exhale
some of the air inside.
She can't just go and take adeep breath because she'll just
float back up.
So she had to exhale some ofthe air in her lungs and so she
could only stay about 15 seconds.
(25:42):
So she'll go down, get theposition, and sometimes the
stingray wasn't there and then,or sometimes the position was
not right and when she came backI wasn't wearing any scuba, so
I needed to.
Well, yeah, because first Icould last a lot longer than her
(26:05):
, because I could hold my breatha deeper, a deeper hold than
her, and then I needed toconverse with her to give her
feedback, you know.
So as soon as she came back up,I'll come back up and then talk
to her and then, when she'sokay, we'll just go back down
(26:26):
and do that until her positionwas right.
And then there was a stingraythere and then, if that came
together nicely, I'll take aphoto.
Then I'll swing back to theboat, pass, take the white belt,
pass that to Ian.
Ian would open the housing,take the camera out, put the
(26:48):
carton back in, process thePolaroid, wait for it for you
know it was 90 seconds or aminute and then open it up, have
a look at the positive and thengive me some feedback on it and
then put another, put the negin where I built tanks of water,
(27:09):
put the negs in there and thenput a new Polaroid in, put the
camera, cock the lens, put thecamera back in the housing and
then pass it back to me I putthe weights around it and go
back to the next shot.
So we were averaging about ashot every hour.
(27:30):
Wow, yeah, because between herdoing the position and getting
it right and having stingrays,it took some time.
Yeah, and our idea was to shootone position a day, just in case
(27:51):
, if we had a great shot, couldwe get a better one with that
position?
Right, because we didn't knowright.
Could there be another magical,a better one with that position
?
Right, because we didn't knowright, could there be another
magical, a better magical momenthappening?
So we thought we'll concentrateon one position a day and we
had all these positions beforewe came to Tahiti.
(28:11):
Yeah, and Tahiti, I have to say,because probably people are
going to ask we talked aboutthis place before and the place.
The island before I was toldwas Niue, with the whales Niue,
but Niue N-I-U-E and it's anisland off the coast of Tonga
Right.
(28:32):
But we were a little bitskeptical to go there because we
never shot whales.
It was in the open ocean andwe've never been there.
So we thought why don't we goto Tahiti and test the housing
and to making sure that it worksIn a lagoon?
(28:52):
It's shallow, it's quite, youknow, it's quite.
It's a lot easier to deal withand and I flew a model from
hawaii that I shot before- yeahand so that's why we're in, uh,
in tahiti, testing the camera.
Yeah, and so, for for a day, wewere shooting one position and
(29:15):
we had three weeks in tahiti,and we were shooting one
position and we had three weeksin tidy and we were shooting
about eight hours a day, whichis what about eight, eight shots
a day about, yeah, averagingabout eight shots a day.
Well, but after three weeks wewere totally emotionally and
(29:35):
physically exhausted.
The water was not warm anymoreand she was kind of over it.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
So it did drain it a little bit out of us, but we got
some great shots.
So I don't know if youraudience are seeing or will be
seeing the stingray photos, butthat was a test shoot, yeah,
which came actually probablymore incredible than the shoot
(30:04):
with the whales.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
And so when you were doing that, did you know before
you went to Tahiti how long itwas going?
Speaker 2 (30:13):
to take to do each shot.
No, we knew that.
We didn't know how long itwould take to get you know to to
take one shot and how long itwould take to get the next shot.
You know, yeah, yeah.
But we had a series of positionand we said, okay, we gotta do
only one position a day becauseif we think that we've got
(30:35):
something right and then move on, then maybe later that could
not be right.
And I think that we've gotsomething right and then move on
, then maybe later that couldnot be right.
And I think that was probablythe best thing, because the
biggest problem well, there wasmore problems than things as we
were discovering it.
So in Tahiti I couldn't getsodium sulfide and you can't
(30:55):
travel with that.
In Hawaii, when I go there orsome other place, I can go to
the university or go to achemist.
You can't really get it overthe chemist, but the university,
with some credibility, they cantrust you and give you sodium
sulfide.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Okay.
So what is sodium sulfide?
What's it used for?
Okay, so what is sodium sulfide?
What's it used for?
Speaker 2 (31:17):
It's a chemical and can be used for different things
, but you can't travel with it,right, yeah, so in Tahiti with
the PN55, you can wash thenegative also in just water,
right, and the sodium sulfidehelped washing the chemicals of
(31:42):
the neg but also act as ahardener.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Right as a fixer.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
Sorry, yeah so, but it was recommended so that you
could later on have your neg inthe fixer after Right.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
You know they could do that, so yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
So we put them in those little tanks that you get
for four, fives.
And what we discovered on thefirst day when we came back,
that probably 20% between 15%and 20% of the necks was clear
(32:25):
as a window, as a glass.
All the emulsion has flown backinto the water.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
Oh God.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
And we don't know why that was happening.
There was two things oh God,salt air right, and we thought
(33:04):
that if we tried to dry it onthe boat, we would end up having
destroyed negative later oneaten by salt, right, yeah, you
know.
So you know you're on sea level.
There's plenty of salt gettingevaporated around you.
It it's bound to go on the egg.
So we decided to keep it wetand then dry it after a day when
(33:26):
we come back home, and thefirst day we discovered that.
So we didn't know if it wasbecause the water got warmer,
but it wasn't all the eggs, andwe didn't know if it was due to
some of the net being the onedone at the beginning and it
(33:46):
passed a certain time.
We were just hoping that therest, that whatever we were
shooting, could stay on the negby the time we got home.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
And you're just talking about each day, right,
like not the end of the trip,just every day, every day.
So you've got eight negatives,yeah, so about two negative
would be out.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
Oh God, yeah, yeah, so you could be unlucky and I
don't know what we've lost.
I don't know because Ian waslooking at it quickly.
Because Ian was looking at itquickly and that's why I said it
was great that we were able tokeep on doing the same position,
so that imagine if we moved onto the next position within a
(34:36):
day, we could have probably lostone of those positions.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Oh, no, totally.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
And a lot of it was experimenting, because some of
the position wasn't working sowe moved on to the next.
It's like shooting a model onland.
Sometimes the idea that youhave doesn't work and you just
got to go with the flow andadjust it and move it or do
something different.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Yeah, no, totally.
And so this, this whole process, is about as far away as from
digital photography as you canget.
Yeah, this is like that isn't.
Did you enjoy that process of?
Oh yeah, the slowness of it?
Speaker 2 (35:17):
yeah, I think I I said to people the the great
thing it was.
I think I wouldn't say theproblem of digital these days,
but it's more like things aretraveling at such a speed these
days, everything's changingrapidly and it was kind of cool
(35:39):
and great to be able to takeyour time to do things.
Yeah, cool and great to be ableto take your time to do things.
Yeah, you know, I mean withwith digital.
I mean they they're gettingcameras now that that everything
, once you shoot it, it's gonnago straight on the net or on the
cloud or somewhere that.
So all this is about speed andtime and and this was just
(36:05):
slowing everything down to the,to the core of things you know
the basic.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
Yeah, there's digital cameras these days where you
can.
It'll basically taking a videoand then you just choose which
frame you want to take out ofthat video, whereas you had to
actually sit there underwaterand think, oh, is this the shot
or is the?
Next one gonna be the shot,yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, before
you even click the shutter, Ihad a moment.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
I don't know if you can recall, there's a shot where
she's in crouching and there'stwo stingrays um on top of that
of yeah, yeah, all right.
So those stingrays came fromopposite direction.
It's not like they werefloating on top of each other
and they just came on top of her.
(36:52):
They came from left to right,both of them, and they came on
top of her and turned towards me.
That's incredible.
So at what time do you go now?
Yeah, right, because you onlygot one shot, so it is.
Is it now?
Is it now?
(37:12):
Is it now Is?
Speaker 1 (37:13):
it now.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Am I going to get something better after, or would
I miss it?
Yeah, you know.
So there was some of thathappening.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
And the beauty about that shot is that there is not
just that the stingrays are inthe perfect position, but there
is a small fish in theforeground of that that if it
was like half a centimeter moreto the right, it would totally
cover her face.
Yeah, I know.
Like the timing of her face.
(37:50):
It's kind of cute, yeah butit's, it's a different.
It's not there, it's slightlyoff of her, but you, it feels
like the fish is kissing heryeah and so, and so, when you're
actually shooting, when you'reusing the camera I mean, you've
got a viewfinder, obviously, soyou're just.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
No, because it's a wide angle.
We put a little viewfinder froma Nikonos on top of it, right,
yeah, from a 15mm Nikonos on it,because it's a glass viewfinder
that's on top of it so I couldsee.
And in there it's kind of coolbecause it's got little frames
(38:31):
so I could see where the camerawas pointing a little bit and
you get used to it, but it gaveme a little bit of an idea.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
And that's just sitting on top of the housing,
of the housing, yeah, in thewater, yeah, yeah, it's a, it's
a waterproof.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
You know what's a Nikonas, right?
Yeah, the old 35 mil underwatercameras, yeah, yeah.
Invented by Kuster and JacquesMaillot?
Yeah, I think.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
So had you done any underwater photos in other ways
before this?
Speaker 2 (39:04):
Well, I come from Mauritius, so I was a big fan of
Cousteau when I was a kid so Iwas spending all my time in the
water.
Dad gave us a littleweathermatic Minota so they used
to take 110 film cartridge,yeah.
So we started shooting withthat camera and we just wanted
(39:27):
to be Cousteau, right, yeah,later on, you know, we went to
school, moved to Australia andthat kind of died because the
great thing in Mauritius you gota ton of coral and fish in
front of you.
In Australia you just got sand,yeah.
So there was nothing muchreally to shoot here, so that
(39:52):
kind of died down.
And then I went and did uni andthen when I went to work about
a couple of years later, Idecided to go and buy an Econos
Right.
And when we went back toMauritius we did some photos and
then we thought why don't westart shooting?
Speaker 1 (40:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
And so I've always been attracted to the water.
I wanted to make a career inunderwater photography.
To make a career in underwaterphotography, but in Australia.
I think I would have had tomove to Florida, oh, right,
because in Australia you onlyhad a couple of diving magazines
(40:36):
at the time, right, but theywanted to pay $10 for a photo,
right, yeah, they wanted to pay$10 for a photo, right, yeah.
So I knew that I could not makea living out of taking photos
underwater and selling it to thebank.
I had to either work for acompany, a brand, an underwater
(40:59):
brand, you know, let's say, likeGotch Arm or any underwater you
know.
Yeah, yeah, like a swimsy brandor wetsuits or well, yeah, a
wetsuit company, a diving bottlecompany, etc.
Yeah, yeah, and all of them arein florida, right?
You know all the I would saythe majority of them.
(41:20):
So for us it was okay, well,what do we do?
And then there was the surfhappening.
That we loved also.
So we thought why don't we goand shoot surfing?
So we transitioned from thatinto shooting surfing and for 15
years I was shooting surfing.
I was traveling the worldshooting surfing.
(41:42):
Mostly in the water or on thebeach as well, mostly from the
land because I had so manymagazines I had to submit to.
But I would go in the waterwhen I could.
Right, yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:55):
And so when you're shooting like that, when you're
shooting underwater with thePolaroid camera, I assume it's
just natural light.
How were you metering?
How were you exposing?
Speaker 2 (42:07):
Was it just Well?
So I know my light and I knowthat I go under a meter
underwater.
I want to expose, overexpose itof one stone.
So if I have F8 at 500 on top,I do you know, 5.6 at 500 or F8
(42:29):
at 250 underwater.
Speaker 1 (42:32):
And you would have to set all those settings before
you close the case up.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, all that stuff before.
Speaker 1 (42:37):
Yeah, did you have any leaks?
Did you have any?
Speaker 2 (42:41):
We didn't.
We tested it in the pool before, and without the camera, of
course, but he makes his housing, he's, he does quite a lot of
housing.
So it's it's about making surethe o-rings were greased and
there was not much sand aroundus, because other than the
bottom of the ocean, but thatdoesn't tend to stick too much
(43:03):
to your o-ring.
But we were in the Zodiac so itwas quite safe.
But every day we were makingsure there wasn't a hair or
something.
But the o-ring was quite softand big so we were tightening
that quite well.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
Right, yeah, but do you still use the camera?
Speaker 2 (43:24):
I still use a well, right, yeah, but do you still
use the camera?
I still use a 4.5.
I haven't used the housingsince I've got a photographer in
Hawaii who wanted to bring itin the waves and test it out.
I think you would have had tobe a team of two or three people
(43:44):
so you would have the housingwith a rope with two or three
people, because what happened isthat if the wave takes it, it
will.
It could smash it.
So if the person is at theright point, because there's so
much air in it, you have the twoother um swimmers at the back
with a rope pulling on the orholding the housing, so it
(44:09):
doesn't go with the wave.
Right, that was the idea if youtook that in the waves, but it
hasn't been used since, right?
Speaker 1 (44:20):
which is unfortunate, but yeah, I mean because it's
such a beautiful format.
I mean, I haven't seen photoslike this before, shot
underwater.
Yeah, yeah, it's incredible.
Speaker 2 (44:30):
And for and for me it was.
This was a great project.
I mean, this is not just agreat, it was an incredible
project, and I always try to gookay, what's my next project,
what do I do?
I don't need to keep on doingthe same thing over.
So what happened, unfortunately, with this project?
(44:55):
With the whales you probably go.
Where's the photo of the nakedgirl with the whales?
When we went to Nui for twoweeks, we didn't see one whale.
Oh yeah, that's always thewhales.
When we went to Nui for twoweeks, we didn't see one whale.
Oh yeah, that's always the way.
And so we got some photos ofthe girl and we thought why
doesn't she practice herposition so that when we see a
whale, it's probably it mightstay, it might go, we don't know
(45:19):
, don't know.
So if she knows exactly how tobe in her position, then we'll
cut that problem and we can getstraight in it quite quickly and
take a photo quite quickly,right?
So we practice and kept onshooting with a four five for me
it was going also making sure II get more used to it in the
(45:44):
open water, yeah.
And so we got some great shotsalso there, but nothing with the
whale and some person askedthat to me before.
I said oh so are you going togo back and shoot it with the
whales?
I'm going, I kind of.
Maybe won't, but I'm kind ofgoing.
(46:07):
You know what that was aproject, that was what we've
done.
It's already an exhibitiontouring.
If I go and do that again withthe whales for me it's going to
be am I going to do a kind ofsame same exhibition?
Speaker 1 (46:23):
Yeah, does that undermine what you've already
done?
Speaker 2 (46:26):
I wouldn't think it would undermine, but I think I
would get bored of it.
Right To go back and say, oh,do I do the same position that I
did Because these were quitegood position?
Yeah, I'll do them, but thenthey'll become boring for me
because it's doing the samething.
So I kind of moving on to adifferent project.
Speaker 1 (46:51):
So did you move on to anything else underwater?
Speaker 2 (46:54):
Yes, but I'm shooting a girl underwater but I'm on
top of the water, oh, okay, soabove, shooting down through the
surface, yes, shooting a girlunderwater, but I'm on top of
the water, oh, okay, yeah, soabove shooting down through the
surface.
Yes, oh, cool.
Yeah.
So trying to use the movement ofthe water to break the lines of
(47:16):
a body, yeah, as a filter,basically Not as a filter, but
you know, if you look atsomebody from top of the water,
if there's movement on the water, let's say a arm is not
straight anymore.
It's kind of broken.
Yeah, so I'm trying to to havethat happening right.
(47:40):
And then I also want to shootit early morning to get all the
colors of the sunrise or thesunset, and so would this be in
the ocean as well.
Well, the problem doing it in,let's say, a river, it tends to
be a lot colder.
I'm shooting it at the momentin the pools of Sydney.
Speaker 1 (48:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
But I don't live in Sydney, so it's when I fly there
, or it's got more complexity ofelements.
So you know, sometimes we gothere and there's no sunrise,
sometimes there's waves too manywaves crashing in the pool, so
there's things like this, andsometimes she can't perform at
(48:24):
all.
So I got to have I think I wantto do it with different models
to give it a little bit ofdifferent personality for some
shots.
So it's an idea.
I've shot about probably fivephotos that I'm happy with, but
I need another probably 10 orsomething, 10 or 15 to really be
(48:48):
able to go okay, which one Ilike best.
Speaker 1 (48:52):
Yeah, and is this something shot on film or is
this a digital project?
Speaker 2 (48:56):
That's shot on still on film on 5x7 Pentax.
Speaker 1 (49:01):
Oh cool, yeah, and are you kind of drawn to
projects that involve complexity?
Speaker 2 (49:08):
Yes, I think so.
Speaker 1 (49:10):
You like the problem solving?
Speaker 2 (49:13):
Well, I think it doesn't need to be always
problem solving as intechnically, but I think I like
it for it not to be easy.
Okay, I think these daysanybody can do anything, right.
You can, I mean, recreate aphoto if you want to, but it's
(49:37):
for me.
I remember when I was doing the4.5 project, when we were
trying to figure out how to makethe camera go underwater, the
owner of the shop which I nearlyslapped him for it because he's
a purist said to me Eric, whydon't you shoot this in digital
and just slap a border around it?
(49:58):
Sacrilege, yeah, yeah, yeah,exactly.
I said uh, his name is ron,he's unfortunately deceased, and
great man he's.
Uh, he's come from germany andso he had all the thing with
likers and hassleblads and allthat stuff.
But, yes, it would have beenthe easiest choice and I would
(50:22):
have gone down and got athousand or two thousand photos.
Yeah, but anybody can do thatas well.
Speaker 1 (50:29):
Oh, no, exactly, yeah .
And then where does it?
Speaker 2 (50:31):
start.
For me it doesn't add to.
I guess I like the challengeand I like to go and do
something that nobody can repeat, you know.
Speaker 1 (50:42):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Or you know, it's that kind ofno one can kind of undermine
what you did, because it's allthere, it's all captured in
camera, it's all practicallydone.
There's no cheating.
Yeah, yeah, and that's kind ofmy philosophy as well is, I do a
lot of work, you know, I buildpractical sets and I build, you
know all this stuff under thewater.
(51:04):
And a lot of work.
You know I build practical setsand I build, you know, all this
stuff under the water and whenI post them, people are like, oh
, you know, you're really goodat Photoshop.
I'm like, oh God, no, that'snot why, it's not how I did it
and that's not why.
Speaker 2 (51:12):
I did it.
Speaker 1 (51:13):
And now with people you know they'll see work and
they'll be, and they'll see howI did it.
They'll see the behind thescenes or everyone they'll be
like oh, you could have justdone that with ai.
Speaker 2 (51:27):
I'm like, oh, that's that problem yeah exactly yeah,
it just keeps happening, yeah,yeah, I mean, I think, uh, you
know, it's always it's easy totake the easy route, I think yes
you know.
So for me it adds to the rarityof the photo after.
It adds to a lot of things.
(51:48):
I mean those photos, those fouror five photos are a limited
edition of six.
On the neg Right yeah.
So we wanted them to be quitespecial and they printed two
meters wide, which is how manyfeet?
Is that Two times?
Speaker 1 (52:11):
Yeah, times by three.
So, yeah, six feet wide.
Yeah, yeah, which must beamazing to see.
Are they on display anywhere?
There's one in my lounge.
Right.
Speaker 2 (52:21):
They're only so.
There's been three buyers ofthem, but they're obviously at
their house, but yeah, sothey're for sale, and so people
who buy them, I guess, put them.
Nobody, no company, has boughtthem.
I think some people are stillquite careful about nudity,
(52:42):
which is, I think, places likeEurope.
I haven't done an exhibitionthere with it.
Yeah, and I will try to dosomething.
It will be easier to have thatin a foyer of a company, let's
say, in Europe, than anywhereelse.
Speaker 1 (53:00):
I think you'll never be in a foyeryear in america, or
it needs to be a few years herein australia to get there yeah,
yeah, eric, that's awesome,such a such an interesting story
like how you, how you did thatand how you kind of yeah, the
time you spent doing that soamazing.
Speaker 2 (53:18):
Yeah, thanks for sharing it with everyone.
Easy and and if anybody got anyquestion, I'm here to answer.
Speaker 1 (53:25):
They can email me and that's no problem.
Yeah, great, I'll add that tothe show notes when we publish
it.
And we also have a Facebookgroup if you want to join.
People come in and theyactually ask questions of the
guests we've had as well.
Speaker 2 (53:39):
Oh, yeah, cool.
What's the Facebook groupcalled?
Speaker 1 (53:42):
It's just the Underwater Podcast group on
Facebook.
Yeah, I'll send you a link toit.
Oh great, awesome, all right,well, thanks very much, eric.
It's so great being able tochat with you about this.
Speaker 2 (53:54):
Easy.
I hope it all made sense.
We were a little bit everywhereall over, but hopefully we come
back and make sense to people.
But I think everybody out therethat just try different things,
experiment it's really cool.
Even if it doesn't work, whocares?
Speaker 1 (54:12):
Oh, no, exactly yeah.
Speaker 2 (54:14):
You won't know until you try.
Speaker 1 (54:20):
Thanks for listening everyone and, as always, if you
like the podcast, pleasesubscribe, review and share.
If you'd like to support withthe production of these episodes
, you can purchase our very coolmerchandise at
theunderwaterpodcastcom.
We've got branded coffee mugs,stickers, beer cozies and
posters featuring our amazingillustration and logo by Joe
(54:40):
Hodano.
If you'd like to connect withus or learn more about our
guests, you can reach us attheunderwaterpodcastcom or on
Instagram.
We also have a Facebook groupwhere you can discuss the
episodes and even get yourquestions answered by our guests
.
There's a link to it in theshow notes.
Also, don't forget aboutWaterproof Magazine showcasing
the best in underwater art.
(55:01):
Read it online or purchase aprint edition at
waterproofmagorg.
You can learn more about myunderwater photography workshops
and mentoring atbrettstanleycom or brett s photo
on instagram.
The underwater podcast ispresented and produced by me,
brett stanley, and our music isneo by oh boy creating everyone.
(55:22):
I'll see you in the water.
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